


It's Not the Load That Breaks You Down (It's the Way You Carry It)

by CoffeeWithConsequences



Series: Retrouvailles [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Advice, Depression, Exhaustion, Friendship, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Phone Calls & Telephones, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-28 01:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15037646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeWithConsequences/pseuds/CoffeeWithConsequences
Summary: Nearing the end of his first NHL season and beyond exhausted, Jack calls Kent and asks for advice.





	It's Not the Load That Breaks You Down (It's the Way You Carry It)

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after [It's not the distance that's the enemy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15022523).

Jack was familiar with emotional turmoil. Even the last few relatively calm years had been punctuated by countless terrible nights, nights he wasn’t sure he’d see the other side of. Physical pain, though, was relatively new. Sure, he’d suffered a few minor injuries, gotten too tired on a few long roadies, but nothing compared to this.

He looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. He was naked, just out of the shower. There were dark circles under his eyes. His hair needed to be cut, and he had two days’ stubble. His skin was broken out for the first time since his early teens. He was at least ten pounds down, bruises peppering his skin. He looked terrible, and he felt worse.

He’d been warned that an NHL season would be like this, too many games in too short a time to keep healthy. He’d been warned, too, that this was harder with a 25 year-old body than it would have been with a 19 year-old body. His joints were a concern, his back was a concern. He’d twisted an ankle in practice three days ago that was still smarting--that didn’t use to happen. He broke a finger early in the season that appeared to have healed crooked. It was all taking its toll.

Jack hated that he’d known this was all going to happen--been told by his teammates and his dad and a hundred other people--and he still hadn’t been prepared.

He was too tired to think about food, so he grabbed a protein shake from the fridge. He’d dutifully eaten everything Bitty left---he kind of wished he’d saved something, but it would probably only make him feel worse. The little notes Bitty used to leave on his sandwiches were shoved in a drawer. It didn’t matter, Jack knew what they said.

He was too tired to focus on that now. Maybe the only good thing about his body taking so much punishment was that he couldn’t muster up the energy to wonder 500 times a day what Bitty was doing, if he was sad, too. 

It was early, but Jack laid down on his bed anyway. He would get up in a while, drink some water, brush his teeth, but for now he just wanted to be horizontal. He looked at his phone, ran his eyes over the SMH chat, tried to ignore Bitty’s posts. He reread a couple of texts from Shitty and Lardo, but was too tired to figure out how to reply. They were worried about him, but he had nothing to say that would make them feel any better.

HIs eyes stopped on the last batch of texts from Kent. “You’re going to be embarrassed that you called me, and embarrassed about the rest of it,” Kent said before he left. “I can’t tell you not to be--it won’t work. What I can tell you is that if you start ignoring my texts again, because you’re embarrassed, I will track your ass down, and I won’t be fucking happy about it.” He’d been completely serious. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, Zimms, but you do have to let me know you’re OK.”

So, Jack had dutifully answered each of Kent’s text. Each answer was the same: “I’m OK.” Kent didn’t really think it was all that funny.

It occured to Jack, as he re-read the last few texts--light, mindless observations about his cat, with whom he seemed to be a little bit obsessed, or the Blackhawks d-men, or some show about models he was watching, that Kent would be a great person to talk to right now. It was nice, Kent trying to stay in touch even though Jack was being kind of a dick. Again. Kent knew what Jack was going through.

When Kent answered, he was somewhere loud. “Zimms,” he said, voice carefully controlled. “Everything OK?”

Jack sighed. “I’m fine, Parse. This isn’t a crisis call.”

Kent didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t relieved. “Great! Give me just a second.” He said something muffled, probably covered the phone. Then there was a long pause, then Kent came back, the background quieter. “Hey.”

“I heard people,” Jack said, more insecure than he’d expected to be when he dialed. “If you’re busy, we can talk later. I meant it--I’m fine.”

“No, bro, I was just leaving anyway.” Kent sounded like he was walking. “Just got out of free skate. I was in the locker room.” Jack heard the beep of a car door unlocking, then the sound of Kent getting in the car. “Let me put you on Bluetooth and you can keep me company while I drive home.”

Once Kent had his electronics adjusted and was pulling out of the parking lot, he turned his attention back to Jack. “So what’s going on? I saw your game last night--nice goal. Mashkov’s looking really good.”

“Thanks, and yeah, he is,” Jack agreed. For several minutes, they talked comfortably about the league, the last couple of weeks’ games, a bit of draft speculation. It wasn’t really any different than the conversations Jack had with his own teammates. 

Finally, Kent got tired of the pretense. “I know you didn’t call me to talk hockey, Zimms,” he said. “How are you, really?”

Jack sighed. “I’m OK. Not great. Better than when you were here.” He thought about apologizing, again, but didn’t. He’d already said it a few times.

“That’s good,” Kent said. “Have you talked to him?”

“Not much. Trying to give him some space.” Jack paused, but decided there was no reason not to confide in Kent. Unlike the rest of Jack’s friends, Kent didn’t have to balance his affection for Jack with his love for Bitty. “He says that he’s too young to be as serious as we were. That we would have ended up married before he knew what hit him, and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life wondering if he made a mistake by settling down too early.” The words still hurt. “I guess...I’m not good at keeping things casual.”

Kent laughed, but it was sympathetic. “Nope,” he agreed. “He has a point. I mean, I know you don’t want to hear that, but damn, he’s what, 21?”

“Yeah. I know.” That was the terrible part--Jack did know. Bitty was being mature, and responsible, and honest, and smart. It didn't make it hurt less. “That’s not what I called to talk to you about, though.”

“OK, so what did you want to talk to me about? Because if you’re going to get all weird about what happened when I was at your place again…”

Jack cut him off. “No. We’re good about that, right?”

“Yes.”

“OK. Good. I want to talk to you about your first year in the Show.”

Kent was quiet a minute. “What about it?”

“How did you manage it? What was it like?”

Kent swore under his breath before he started talking loud enough for the phone to pick it up. “It was fucking awful,” he finally said. 

-0-

Kent couldn’t shake the feeling of being underwater. It was as if he’d been thrown in, completely unexpectedly, the minute he found Jack. Everything since then had just been him being pushed down deeper. The hospital. Jack’s parents. Being shuttled to the SportsNet studio. The lights and the cameras and the people talking in a way he couldn’t quite seem to follow. The Aces hat abruptly on his head, the jersey over his shoulders. Saying things he couldn’t remember. Then being on a plane for a long, loud time. None of it was real. 

Once he walked out of the Las Vegas airport, though, it got realer. The oppressive heat forced its way inside his clothes, up his nose, under his skin. The people talking to him now, an assistant GM, a captain, expected him to be listening. His captain, he realized, dimly. His assistant GM. He played for this team now. He might not be feeling it, but these things were happening with or without him.

As his first days in Las Vegas passed, Kent did the best he could to go where he was steered and not think too much. The underwater feeling passed, but it left confusion and heartbreak behind. He’d known that things would move fast after draft day, but he hadn’t been prepared to do it alone. 

He didn’t know what to do without Jack. His best friend, boyfriend, and on-ice partner just gone, leaving behind millions of questions. Questions that were being asked of Kent, because nobody else close to Jack was talking. Of course, Kent wasn’t talking either--there had been one terse phone call from Bad Bob, asking him to keep whatever he was feeling and whatever he saw quiet, and a lecture from the Aces PR team on the same subject. Kent wouldn’t have said anything, anyway--he had no idea what to say. 

By the time he’d been in Vegas a week, Kent had a new apartment (his first) and a new car (also his first). He had a new agent, a manager, and a financial planner. He’d met some of the team, seen the stadium, skated on the ice. Then he’d gone home, sat in his empty apartment, and wondered what the fuck he was supposed to next. He was nineteen, he now made more than a million dollars a year, and he didn’t have any idea how to be a person.

-0-

“I’m sorry Kenny, that must have been really hard.” Jack wasn’t precisely surprised by what Kent was telling him--he knew, in broad strokes, what happens when you’re drafted. He hadn’t ever really considered what it would have been like for Kent, though, to be completely alone in Las Vegas at nineteen, with no support or guidance. 

“Yeah,” Kent sighed and Jack thought he heard a turn signal. “I keep thinking, now that I’m used to all this shit, I should say something about it. Something about how the league needs to take better care of rookies. But I don’t really know who I’d talk to.”

Jack had a few ideas, but didn’t say anything. This was something they could talk about later. 

“Your apartment and stuff in Providence are great, though,” Kent said. “Your folks helped you set that all up, right?”

Jack made an affirming noise. “Yeah, my mom pretty much decorated it. Well...her and Bits.”

“So that’s not what you were asking,” Kent continued, ignoring Jack’s mention of Bitty. “How did I manage what? The hockey?”

“The hockey. The schedule. The exhaustion.” Jack tipped his head back against his headboard. “I’ve never been so tired.”

“Ah,” Kent answered. “That part.”

-0-

Kent sat on the bench in front of his locker until all the other players were gone. Press had finished, and everybody was anxious to get home and to bed. They were all tired. Kent was so tired, in fact, that he wasn’t sure he was going to make it home.

The schedule in the Q was grueling, but the NHL played 82 games a year in the regular season. Kent was feeling every single one of the 74 they’d played so far. His whole body ached. He was young, and healthy, and uninjured, and he was playing good hockey, but he felt like he was going to fall apart.

“Hey kid, why are you still here?” Coles, one of the team’s old-timers, appeared in the door and headed toward his stall. “Forgot my phone,” he said as he picked it up. He looked at Kent with interest. “You’re not even all the way dressed. Are you OK?”

Kent tried to nod, but he wasn’t sure his head actually made it. “Just...really tired.”

Coles sat down next to him on the bench and looked sympathetic. “Yeah, it’s that time in the season,” he agreed. “And you’ve been playing extra shifts.”

A few injuries had meant scrambling the lines, and Kent’s speed made him a good choice to put in some places he wouldn’t otherwise be. It was fun, and he was learning a lot, but it made for another complication when he was already barely hanging on.

It was probably because Kent was so tired, and because he knew he’d be going home to a dark, nearly unfurnished apartment with nothing but protein shakes and peanut butter in the fridge, but he looked at Coles with wide, overwhelmed eyes. “I don’t think I can do this,” he said, voice breaking. “I’ve been working for this my whole life, and I don’t think I’m gonna make it.”

“It feels that way to everybody,” Coles said, still looking sympathetic. “Haven’t you noticed how rough we’re all looking?” His smile was tired and small. He hesitated, then asked, voice quiet, “are you taking anything to help?”

Kent raised his eyebrows. This couldn’t possibly be going where he thought. “I’m doing my B-12 shots and all of that,” he said. 

“Nah, bro, that’s not what I meant.” Coles rummaged through his bag for a minute, then pulled out a pill bottle. “There’s a team doctor who’ll prescribe these. They help.”

Kent tried to breathe. He had no idea what was in the bottle, but it didn’t matter. All he could see, even though his eyes were open, was Jack’s open hand, open reaching across the tile floor for a pill bottle. The answer couldn’t be pills. He couldn’t. He couldn’t even think about it.  
“Uh, thanks, good idea,” Kent muttered, jamming his feet into his sneakers without untying them. “I just remembered, I...I gotta be somewhere. Thanks though, man.” 

He was out the door before Coles could even answer.

-0-

Jack was silent, unsure how to answer. He wasn’t surprised, exactly. They’d been offered drugs occasionally in the Q, too, though for more recreational purposes. “That’s not...that’s not what I was taking, Kenny,” he finally said. “Mine were for anxiety.”

“I know. It didn’t matter.” Kent’s voice had gone hard. “Freaked Coles out. He thought I was going to narc.”

“I guess that’s one way to get through the end of the season,” Jack said. As it came out of his mouth, he knew it was the wrong thing to say, but he couldn’t figure out how to fill the silence. “But that’s not gonna work for me.”

Kent snorted. “Didn’t work for me, either. At least, not that first year.”

-0-

Kent didn’t remember winning the Calder. He’d been there, at the awards ceremony. He’d worn a nice suit and said the right things--he’d seen the tape afterward to prove it. But he didn’t remember any of it. His memory ended hours before, breathing into a paper bag on the floor, so shaky he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get up.

The day after the ceremony, Kent woke up with what he thought was a hangover. When it didn’t get any better all day, he finally decided something else might be wrong. Not sure he could drive, he called a cab. An hour later, he was admitted to University Medical Center with exhaustion and dehydration. 

Kent’s life was full of moments of intense shame. He remembered peeing his pants when he couldn’t get out of his pads fast enough in PeeWees. He remembered coming before his partner’s lips had even closed around him the first time he’d had his dick sucked. He’d burned red with the shame of stupid fouls, missed shots, and aborted come-ons. But he’d never been as ashamed as he was when he got out of the hospital and was called in to talk to the Aces management team about whether or not his mental and physical health could stand another season. 

-0-

“I had a fucking great first season,” Kent told Jack, pulling into his parking spot. “25 goals, 56 assists, the fucking Calder. And I barely survived it.”

Jack was silent. The guilt rushed over him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It would have been easier....if we’d done it together.”

Kent laughed. “It sure as fuck would have.” Jack heard him getting out of the car, heard the click of his door locking and Kent’s grunt as he threw his bag over his shoulder. “It’s hard every year, but it’s never as hard as the first year. The Show is a whole different world, Zimms. Even for a hockey prince.”

Jack stretched his legs, wincing at the soreness. “Kenny, can I ask you something else?” He didn't know why he was doing it, but he already hurt, so may as well. 

“Yeah?”

“Did you hate me?”

Kent laughed. There were a series of beeps--Kent disabling his alarm system, maybe? “Yeah,” he said. “I hated you. I hated you for not winning the goddamn Calder. I hated you for not having the goals and doing the interviews. I hated you for not ever being there when I looked for you on the ice. I hated you for not answering my calls. I hated you for leaving me alone.” He sounded as if he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t.

“Yeah.” Jack didn’t know what to say. It was the answer he’d expected, but it still tore into him. 

After a moment, Kent spoke again. “I don’t hate you anymore,” he said. “It’s like the hockey season, you know? By this point, with it beating you down for months, and all your bones hurting, you think you hate it. You think you just want it to be over so you can think about something else. But in the end? It’s hockey and you know you love hockey.” He sighed. “That’s what you’re like for me, Zimms. You wore me all the way down. But I’m never going to be able to hate you for very long.”

After they hung up, Jack got up and drank his water and brushed his teeth. He switched off the lights and got back into bed. Under the covers, he thought about Kenny at nineteen, alone in Las Vegas. He thought about himself, alone in a hospital in Montreal. He wanted to cry, but he was just too tired.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come visit me on [Tumblr](https://coffeewithconsequences.tumblr.com/) or read the rest of my fic here at [Archive of Our Own](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeWithConsequences/works)!


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